OG'S ARE HIRING

The biggest hirers in Silicon Valley are the old guard, not startups

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Silicon Valley loves startups. Job applicants might show more love for their aging competitors.

The jobs site Indeed analyzed job posting data in San Francisco Bay Area in 2017, and found tech hiring is still dominated by the old guard such as Apple (1976), Cisco (1984) and Oracle (1977). The average age of top hiring companies was 34 years old (the oldest was GE founded in 1892), with the youngest—enterprise software firm Workday—having just arrived on the the scene in 2005.

Indeed calculated the ranking by tallying total number of tech job postings per company in the region. Tech jobs have accounted for about 19% of all local job postings in Silicon Valley.

The result should be too surprising. Startups and even massive tech companies such as Netflix and Uber (both of which almost made the list) make a point of running lean when it comes to hiring as they pour their money into growth to cement their market position. Once established, the companies have the luxury of increasing headcount, especially large B2B companies requiring established sales and marketing teams. Indeed suspects there’s a second factor at play: big companies are racing to catch up with more nimble competitors. Walmart’s push into e-commerce means it must hire heavily to develop new expertise such as artificial intelligence in its struggle for survival against Amazon.